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TNA Lockdown 2013: Quick thoughts

TNA Lockdown 2013: Quick thoughts

TNA Lockdown

One of the major talking points this week stems from the ending to Sunday’s TNA Lockdown PPV, which featured a less-than-shocking heel turn for Bully Ray as he reunited with his brother Devon inside the Aces & Eights stable. The San Antonio crowd jeered and threw trash in the ring, the majority of them hopefully incensed beyond a kayfabe obligation.

Whether the former Team 3D wrestler will prove to be a credible champion remains to be seen, though fans now await with trepidation the terrifying possibility of Ray stepping into the ring with a vengeful albeit haggard Hulk Hogan. Wrestling audiences worldwide should pray this does not transpire.

Hardy or Ray: whoever won the contest, not everyone would have been satisfied. Indeed, both wrestlers have now completed the turn to emulate Hogan’s once great swerve to join the NWO at Bash at the Beach 1996. Hardy had his time with Immortal as the “Antichrist of Professional Wrestling”, and now it falls to Bully Ray to lead the charge against further incarnations of “TNA Originals”.

But how many more times must wrestling audiences endure another nostalgic throwback to the heady days of the NWO? Even WWE has returned to that particular well far too comfortably in recent times with both Nexus and The Shield, with varying results. The key things that differentiate the E from TNA in its handling of factions is its reluctance to transform a bankable star such as Cena into a heel figurehead, as well as an awareness of when to kill an angle that’s long overstayed its welcome.

– Ed Doyle